Page 159 of True Blue

I close the distance between Indie and me, shuffling my knees, stepping with my hands, until I’m directly at her feet.

I look down at them and briefly get the urge to bend and kiss them, until movement from Indie’s hand makes me freeze.

“Don’t. Move.”

I keep my eyes on hers, watching as her hand comes closer to my face, until it’s a centimeter over my cheek. I can feel her touch through the hair of my beard. I can feel the charge from her hands, and I want to lean to the left, just slightly, so she’s touching me. But I don’t. I obey, and I stay still. Her hand hovers over my cheek, her fingers flexing like she wants to touch me too.

But she doesn’t.

Instead she bends at the waist.

She leans in toward me—closer, closer, closer, her sweet breath ghosting over my lips. My heart is kicking almost painfully.

I exhale shakily, feeling like this is a revelation, on the precipice of something dangerous and yet safe. Indie looks at my eyes, looks at my mouth, before meeting my eyes again.

She opens her mouth, and I open mine in anticipation.

And then something shifts on her face. Her eyes widen as she looks at me, looks down at the ground, and jerks back. She looks horrified, and I’m scared that I might have scared her.

“Leave,” she whispers.

The word falls like the blade of a guillotine on this moment. Every single part of me wants to refuse, to beg, to stay.

My dick throbs to the point of pain in my pants, desperate for release, for relief. I look up at Indie as she moves away, placing distance between us again. Her shoulders are tense, and her arms are crossed once more, her breath comes in and out of her quickly.

It’s like I can practically see her constructing the walls between us again.

I want to cling to her waist and beg her for forgiveness, beg to stay with her, just a little longer.

But I don’t.

Surreptitiously, I adjust myself, but it does nothing to relieve me. I stand from the floor, wincing briefly at the pain in my knees. Indie doesn’t look at me; she keeps her eyes on the doors that lead to the balcony.

Sea view.

Beautiful.

Briefly, because I’m a glutton for punishment, I close my eyes and think of the could-have-been of tonight.

Us spending our last night together, tangled up in the sheets of that large bed, my head between her thighs as I licked her to orgasm over and over. Slowly pumping into her, my hands cradling her beautiful face as I locked eyes with her and bit my tongue so I didn’t blurt out a marriage proposal then and there.

I think of Indie practically begging me to help her pick out the hotel and me running to my mother at the drop of a hat. I think of all the ways I failed this wonderful woman, and the pain I’m feeling right now is only a drop in the ocean.

I open my eyes and look at Indie, who seems to be thinking the same thing with the longing expression on her face.

“Goodnight, Indie,” I whisper, walking to the door of her hotel room and opening it.

It’s probably my imagination, but I choose to believe that I heard her softly whisper before I closed the door.

“Goodnight, Teddy.”

30

INDIE

OCTOBER

Patient presented with severe cough and difficulty breathing. Was recommended for a biopsy by GP. Severe clouding on the chest X-ray; had trouble breathing, and in the reception area, he almost collapsed to his knees⁠—